SAN FRANCISCO — General Motors plans to roll out a driverless ride-hailing fleet by 2019 that eventually could become a core part of the automaker’s business.

GM executives told investors here Thursday that by 2025, autonomous vehicles could be operated profitably because cost reductions and wide consumer adoption should reduce the price of such transportation down to less than $1 per mile, or about a third of current ride-hailing services.

Without a driver to pay, profits from autonomous ride-hailing fleets would go directly to whatever companies run them. The main cost of business is maintenance and manufacturing the vehicles.

Advocates say self-driving cars can drastically cut pollution and help prevent the current 40,000 annual road deaths, most of which are the result of driver error.

GM's current entry in the pure electric category is the Chevrolet Bolt.

The company's autonomous, or self-driving, technology, has accelerated after it acquired San Francisco start-up Cruise Automation in 2016.

“General Motors is sending the message to investors that it is speeding toward an autonomous electric future that will include ride-sharing and will be profitable," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader.

GM officials said it was the only company building self-driving cars on an assembly line, which is key to ensuring that such a fleet can be built reliably at scale.

"Getting to the point where we can launch this technology is the beginning of the journey; it will rapidly improve from the minute it is launched," said Dan Ammann, president of autonomous vehicle strategy. "There will be a steep and massive learning curve."

Public acceptance of self-driving vehicles should be easier when people see the compelling price difference and safety that comes to autonomous car ride-hailing.

Ammann put up a slide indicating that today's typical Uber or Lyft ride costs about $2.50 per mile, with 75 cents going back to the company and the rest going to the driver. By the time company costs are paid, each ride ends up requiring a subsidy.

In contrast, by getting rid of the driver, all the $1.50-per-mile ride cost is recovered by the company running the self-driving vehicles, which, in turn, can run constantly, much like an airplane is always in use unless it is being serviced.

Amman also said the ensuing self-driving car network would provide unparalleled amounts of data on cars and roadways that also can be monetized to, for example, help government officials in overhauling infrastructure.

Other opportunities for profit will come from an eventual reduction in the cost of both batteries and LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors which are the vehicle's brain, Ammann said.

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said that although many companies are working on autonomous vehicles, there is an opportunity for early movers to grab market share.

"Software is the differentiated product (with AVs), meaning a company is developing it and if you're sufficiently advanced may not be able to compete," he said. "That's how you can create a gap between AV ride-sharing experiences that can leave us with a competitive advantage."

Vogt said Cruise currently has 180 self-driving Bolts, which are testing in San Francisco and Phoenix. Testing will start early next year in New York City. He said that weather, mapping and regulations are among the potential speed bumps for any AV program.

GM's road map throws a gauntlet down to Google-owned Waymo, whose 8-year-old self-driving car program has been pushing the envelope of autonomous car tech.

Waymo currently is testing a fleet of 100 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans in the Phoenix area with residents who are using the vehicles as a replacement for their own cars.

Analysts long have anticipated that the first rollout of consumer-ready self-driving cars would be part of a ride-hailing network and not as privately owned vehicles.

As recently as last month, Cruise was aggressively road-testing Chevrolet Bolt electric cars in San Francisco.

"Our vehicles encounter challenging and often absurd situations up to 46 times more often than other places self-driving cars are tested," Vogt wrote. "And while we’re generally drawn to tough problems, we test in SF only because we have to. We believe it’s the fastest path toward deploying self-driving cars at scale."

The news was unveiled at an event so targeted to investors that GM opted to invite only media outlets it felt communicate directly with the financial community. That group included NBC, Bloomberg, Bloomberg TV, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

GM planned to give the media rides in some of its Cruise AVs later in the day. A few weeks ago, Waymo did the same demo at its private testing facility in central California.